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Hello! This is my second attempt at a synopsis for Malevolent. Because I’d never written a synopsis before, I wasn’t really sure what a synopsis needed to include which is why I thought it was a good idea to make a little teaser to intrigue my audience rather than give away most of the details that I intend the reader to pick up. However, reading all the other synopsis’s posted in this competition and taking note of a recent comment, I’d really like to have a second go at it and bring justice to my story.

Thank you for all the people who have reviewed so far! Expect a returned gesture soon!

Setting and Background

Set in summer, sometime in the present, Malevolent takes place at mainly one location which is known as St Mercia. St Mercia is a boarding school, situated in the ancient county of Mercia, founded and named by the Anglo-Saxons.

Among the rustic and classic building structures, the school is one of the biggest and the oldest schools in Britain and if walls could talk, they would reveal a number of disturbing secrets from the past. The focus of these secrets come from a dorm that has recently been salvaged and refurbished after a mysterious act forced the school to condemn it. Its location is strangely further away from the other dorms, right next to the eerie woodland beyond the school grounds. The dorm holds a number of secrets with all its sealed doorways and secret passages and soon it becomes home to the unimaginable.

The story starts a year previous, late at night when there is a tragic car accident that marks the turning point in one of the student’s life. It’s upon arrival at St Mercia for the new term that things go from bad to worse for young Kira Lopez when the horrific past of the school intertwines with the chilling phenomenon that haunts her in the night- a phenomenon that can only be described as Malevolent.

Characters

There are a number of characters in this story, many of which are very significant to the growing plot although do not star frequently overall.

Kira Lopez

The main character is a young girl called Kira Lopez, who is returning back to boarding school after a near death experience in a car accident. Before her agonising chain of events prior to her return to St Mercia, Kira was once a happy, confident and friendly girl who enjoyed dancing and playing in the school sports team. She came from a small town and lived with her mother and her step-father, however she has spent a number of years away from home in boarding school. Upon her return to St Mercia, we see Kira from a different angle. Facing her surreal circumstances, Kira is compelled by fear, paranoia and difficult decisions. By pushing away her supportive boyfriend and loyal best friends, Kira finds herself suffering alone with only ‘bad boy’ Ian Kellie and ‘Teen Supermodel’ Lexie Green to help her.

Soon, she forgets her previous life and Kira Lopez is banished to a world of shadows and the unknown.

Ian Kellie

Ian Kellie comes into this mess, completely by choice; choosing to aid Kira despite hardly knowing her. At the beginning of the story, it is frequently implied that Ian is rather vain and big-headed. He brags about how he is God’s Gift to women and how ‘teen model’ Lexie Green will surely fall for him. However, as the story develops and Kira becomes weaker and weaker, she turns to him for support and finds something ‘special’ behind his flirtatious ways and muscle building obsessions.

Ian is a boy full of small talents not necessarily in the classroom but his abilities to crack hidden messages and use his acting skills to lead people off his case works effectively. He knows exactly what he is doing, even though sometimes he keeps it to himself. Despite most of the other characters getting wound up with his sarcastic comments and witty nicknames, Ian is a very humorous and refreshing character that can bring light to a dark situations and acts selflessly in times of need. To him, the mystery of the Malevolent is his kind of adventure- and he enjoys every minute of it!

Lexie Green

Lexie Green is clearly a troubled outcast throughout the story. Her lack of trust is due to her mysterious past and her constant yet controlled paranoia makes her fully aware and prepared for a number of situations. Lexie has suffered from insomnia ever since she first arrived at St Mercia. She has a strange habit of leaving her bedroom at night and venturing the woodland beyond the dorms. Her relationship with Kira has never been a good one yet both girls know that they need each other to bring down the Malevolent. Lexie may be beautiful, but she is strong and hard faced and jumps to conclusions easily. She is deeply connected to the night of the accident, as is Ian, yet unlike the others she seems to have decided who exactly was to blame and she is not willing to forgive…

In public, Lexie is thought of as the most popular girl in school, although she does not necessarily have friends, but admirers. She is no stranger to the limelight and often sings in school productions and used to be a young model.

Plot Teaser

Following a horrific car accident, Kira Lopez is released from hospital and returns to St Mercia boarding school despite the trauma of the crash. She’s attended the school for many years, however this year, something has changed and it’s soon obvious that St Mercia is not the same happy school it used to be.

Something disturbing and unexplainable stalks the dormitories and haunts Kira in the late hours of the night. Something that whispers, opens doors and violently attacks her when she least expects it.

Desperate for answers, Kira delves into St Mercia’s past and discovers an alarming secret. But the teachers aren’t the only people keeping secrets from her. Kira soon stumbles in a mass of lies and deceit with shady characters who used to be her friends- all of which played their part in that fateful night of the accident.

Could this all be just a sick cruel joke, side effects to her mental state or something much, much darker…?

Themes

There are many themes throughout Malevolent which gives the whole story depth and meaning. The first, fate and responsibility, is the most important. It revolves around the death of Joshua Baker, a man whose death was caused by Kira Lopez’s car accident. Kira, Lexie, Ian and another girl named Bryony all share responsibility for the incident, even though they were all fated to be there that night and attend the same school. In reference to the murders within the book, responsibility and guilt is shown in different ways through different characters. Kira also struggles with her responsibility to protect her friends from walking into the same bottomless pit that she has fallen into.

A number of characters in the story are actually outcasts, including Lexie, Ian and Kira. As the story develops, they all come together; opening the parallel theme of friendship when all the characters eventually bond once they learn that their lives are on the line.

Other Details…

Malevolent is a horror novel with a comic element, based on malicious ghost phenomenon. There are 45 chapters within which I have tried to keep the same length. Malevolent consists of 105,785 words.

At the moment, there are no intentions to create a sequel. However, if in demand, the repeating cycle in which the story ends on can be broken by a character that is featured frequently but does not necessarily have a big role. This doesn’t mean that there are loose ends in the story- more like suspicions about how certain characters intended their legacy to be discovered along with the research founded by Kira and her friends.

Malevolent, although completed, can still be edited in response to comments given in earlier reviews when the story was originally published in the ‘stories and scripts’ channel.

Thank you to all those who have commented so far. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!